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Has anyone ever heard of the phrase: "You'll never have to bury a good dog"?

My dad used to tell us this a bunch when we were kids and I just figured it was some goofy country saying.

We used to have some poodles when I was a kid. Patches was the mother and we'd sell off the pups as she had them. We kept one runt of the litter though and named it Little Bit. Duffy was the father of them all and my mom and dad's clear favorite. As it got older and older, it had a bunch of health problems and they'd take him to the vet and pay to do whatever they could. It had gotten cancer or something at some point and they had to cut off part of it's ding dong. It was 14 years old and probably the mangiest thing I'd ever seen.

Overnight, we'd keep them all in our laundry/utility room. Well, one day, my brother had opened the door and Duffy went bolting past and straight out the back door. Which was weird enough because we never left the back door open. It just happened to be open at this exact moment, but there's no way this deaf and dumb dog could have known that. Let alone move as fast as it did to get out the door before any of us could catch him and put him back in the laundry room. So anyways, he's gotten outside.

Now we had a pretty big backyard and it was fenced in all the way around. The gate was next to the edge of the house, but there wasn't enough room for a dog his size to squeeze through anywhere.
So in the, about, 4-5 seconds it took us, me, my brother and mom and dad, all of us, to see him run out the back door, and then try to chase after him, he was totally gone!

We searched the entire backyard and went around the whole neighborhood trying to find him. Even if it was just his dead body from getting hit by a car from running off so fast and recklessly, but nothing! It's the closest I've ever come to believing in ghosts.

Anyways, ever since then, I don't believe that was just some back-water country saying.

I was talking with my mom about and and she was saying it, I remembered; her mother, my grandmother, was there at the time and she's the one that opened the door to do some laundry, when the dog zipped out. So there were 5 of us there, that he got by to vanish!

All you had to add was "society" for an awesome play-on-words/reference.
Every time I watch that movie I'm forced to feel guilty at how much I use "very", and "really" for that matter. God damn them for being right, and telling me about it.

Dead animal poets:
My cousins had a dog; a German Shepherd. Her name was Skeeter. She was the gentlest dog around children I've ever seen, and insanely protective of children. If an adult came to the gate, she was like Cujo. But a kid, any kid. A stranger, family member, or friend kid. It didn't matter. Not a peep out of her. She ended up being put down because she was beaten by either the police, or their shitty neighbor. It was sad because she was a really good dog.
She didn't do ghost things like the Captain's dog, unfortunately. But while she was alive she had an impact on whoever she trusted.

When I was born there was also a black kitten that was born around the same time. Actually there were lots of black kittens born but there was one in particular that my father brought home to my mum, while she rocked a new-born me in a chair, that he tried to hide in his coat as a surprise before it jumped out and joined us. She named him Kitty, maybe because she was worn out from deciding on a name for me already. Kitty aged with me as an outdoor cat who liked to wander the woods and one autumn, somewhere around my tenth or eleventh year, Kitty wandered the woods and never came out.
I had a dream about him coming out of those woods with another missing cat, a white one, sharing the severed head of a third cat, passing it back and forth like a ball of yarn.
A few years later, in autumn, a black cat wandered out of those woods. He emerged from the same spot Kitty emerged from in my dream. We didn't know his age but he seemed at least a couple years in. He entered our house and roamed it like he lived there. He laid in the spots Kitty laid in.The other pets welcomed him, even embraced him, despite not taking kindly to strangers at all. We fed him and let him sleep in the house at night until somebody came to claim in and at day time, he went back out to wander until nightfall when he returned. None of the neighbors knew anyone around with a missing cat. Nobody put any notices up. The cat wouldn't leave. He started bringing us dead things. My first girlfriend and I watched him eat a mouse's head. It was Halloween and he somehow ended up with the name Salem and spent the next dozen plus years with us. (Later on, my mother got into reading about re-incarnation and all kinds of circle-of-life-banshee-boosh and believed Salem was Kitty returned in a new body.)
Salem died yesterday. From olding. Don't know how much olding since we never knew his true age. He didn't care much about it anyway. He liked to get into fights and come home banged up, purring and laughing about it. Gashed ears, bite holes, swollen eye. One time, a neighbor's unstable German shepherd(mauled his own sister to death) trapped him in his dog house and Salem somehow fought his way out. Yesterday, on his death bed, he kicked out of three seizures during the Dolphins/Pats game. It was clutch time and Dolphins were up by four. Each play concluded with his eyes opening back up like, "Did they get it?" until Dolphins intercepted on 4th down with two seconds left, ending the game, and Salem peaced out. It was the worst Pats loss ever!
I was actually going to post in the Buzzkill a couple days ago, right before this thread was made, about how he was on his way out but was too sad to.

We had an dog named him Chester. It had three good legs, my step-dad put a cast on the fourth when he found it roaming around the yard. It was so ugly. Looked like a walking scab, with its markings. May have been pit, German Shepard and Rot. He was sneaky, a little mean and dumb.
Chester had a mate that followed him everywhere, we named Girlie.
Girlie seemed to be some mix of long haired collie with German Shepherd coloring. Prettiest dog we ever saw. So smart, you could tell her anything and she would understand. Had that perma smile some dogs have. Everyone loved her. But she was loyal to Chester and when he left, she would wait for him for days until he returned. We couldn't get rid of Chester because of Girlie. So we kept them until they passed away.
Chester died first, probably from some dog syphilis. And Girlie died from old age. We cried for her when Chester died. Then we wept when she died. Girlie was so gentle and sweet to my baby brothers.

The Roman disappeared when i went to jail, I think he went into the wall searching for food. I suffered terrible guilt over this. I hope he haunts the fuck out of whoever lives in my apt. now, I loved that place.

The Roman disappeared when i went to jail, I think he went into the wall searching for food. I suffered terrible guilt over this. I hope he haunts the fuck out of whoever lives in my apt. now, I loved that place.

When I was born there was also a black kitten that was born around the same time. Actually there were lots of black kittens born but there was one in particular that my father brought home to my mum, while she rocked a new-born me in a chair, that he tried to hide in his coat as a surprise before it jumped out and joined us. She named him Kitty, maybe because she was worn out from deciding on a name for me already. Kitty aged with me as an outdoor cat who liked to wander the woods and one autumn, somewhere around my tenth or eleventh year, Kitty wandered the woods and never came out.
I had a dream about him coming out of those woods with another missing cat, a white one, sharing the severed head of a third cat, passing it back and forth like a ball of yarn.
A few years later, in autumn, a black cat wandered out of those woods. He emerged from the same spot Kitty emerged from in my dream. We didn't know his age but he seemed at least a couple years in. He entered our house and roamed it like he lived there. He laid in the spots Kitty laid in.The other pets welcomed him, even embraced him, despite not taking kindly to strangers at all. We fed him and let him sleep in the house at night until somebody came to claim in and at day time, he went back out to wander until nightfall when he returned. None of the neighbors knew anyone around with a missing cat. Nobody put any notices up. The cat wouldn't leave. He started bringing us dead things. My first girlfriend and I watched him eat a mouse's head. It was Halloween and he somehow ended up with the name Salem and spent the next dozen plus years with us. (Later on, my mother got into reading about re-incarnation and all kinds of circle-of-life-banshee-boosh and believed Salem was Kitty returned in a new body.)
Salem died yesterday. From olding. Don't know how much olding since we never knew his true age. He didn't care much about it anyway. He liked to get into fights and come home banged up, purring and laughing about it. Gashed ears, bite holes, swollen eye. One time, a neighbor's unstable German shepherd(mauled his own sister to death) trapped him in his dog house and Salem somehow fought his way out. Yesterday, on his death bed, he kicked out of three seizures during the Dolphins/Pats game. It was clutch time and Dolphins were up by four. Each play concluded with his eyes opening back up like, "Did they get it?" until Dolphins intercepted on 4th down with two seconds left, ending the game, and Salem peaced out. It was the worst Pats loss ever!
I was actually going to post in the Buzzkill a couple days ago, right before this thread was made, about how he was on his way out but was too sad to.

As hard as all that was to read, both literally and figuratively, it was worth it just to read "banshee-boosh."

Yeah, they don't require too much, I suppose. Wouldn't like a hamster, my sister had a few and they always made this awful noise while running about in the cage at night and threw sawdust all over the place.

I rabbit-sat last weekend, it was the greatest thing and now I desperately want a rabbit. The rabbit had been house-trained so he only defecated on newspapers that were set out in the corner of his play pen.

One of my group of dweeb friends in uni said she was just going to leave her goldfish outside for a cat to eat because she couldn't take them home on the train with her over the Christmas holidays. And it upset me so I said I'd take them over Christmas. So we went and picked up this bowl of fish and all the way home in the car, every bump, all the water was sloshing out all over my lap. We had to keep stopping to check all the fish were still in there.
I fed them but the water looked pretty grubby so a couple of days later I bought a little net to get them out so I could change the water. Got home - all dead. All three of them. It was pretty sad.
I told the girl and then found out it was also her birthday so good times for her.
I don't know why they died. I think she hadn't changed the water in ages though. I maybe overfed them? Ugh, I felt bad. I was hoping to save their stupid little lives.

Sometimes goldfish just die. It is easier to kill them than keep them alive really.

I had a goldfish named Sparkles when I was 22 that Gabriel won at a carnival. Sparkles lived for almost a year and I took him on road trips with me several times and would talk to him and hang out with him and bring his bowl around to different places in the appartment when I thought he was bored with the scenery.

One day he was just belly up in his bowl and I am seriously still sad about it. I couldn't even think about having fish for years without getting bummed out. Now I adore these giant shark catfish we have and am really glad to have them. They make me happy. We wouldn't have them except they needed taken in, either.

My grandma had a rabbit named Eliot when I was little and I loved him for years too. He was grey with floppy ears and used to try to mate with the cats. He had a hutch in the backyard but mostly hopped around the yard and the house. He loved eating yellow rose petals and parsley the best. When he had to be put down when i was a teenager they buried him behind a rose bush in the back yard and put this stone yard ornament of a rabbit that looked just like him and was his size over his grave and sometimes it would be weird because you would catch a glimpse of it out of your peripheral and think it was him just lounging back there.

I keep coming into this thread and I'm afraid to post in here because you guys might report my grandma for being an animal serial killer.

I've had a shitload of pets and I miss most of them and a few I didn't even get to meet until after they were dead...this is partly why I don't have any pets right now. Eventually I want to own a couple of pets that I can dedicate time to and take care of.

I rabbit-sat last weekend, it was the greatest thing and now I desperately want a rabbit. The rabbit had been house-trained so he only defecated on newspapers that were set out in the corner of his play pen.

Didn't know rabbits could be trained. This changes up the game.
I've wanted one of these rabbits but I'd probably be a terrible owner. I haven't gotten one for the sake of the rabbit.
Behold the splendor this is THE LIONHEAD RABBIT ...rabbit, rabbit (rabbit)
The ugly ones can be quite scarey. They look like a giant mangy rodent that did it with a alley cat.

Frozen mice is just weird and creepy. Like what do you have a big ziplock of them in the freezer? As amusing as that sounds, it seems unnatural.

Well, you can feed them live mice, but it's actually pretty cruel to the mice. Or hard to do if you think of mice as anything but food for other animals. Also apparently snakes don't really like the frozen mice though. My cousin, who raises all kinds of reptiles back in Australia breeds nice for the express purpose of feeding them to his snakes. The smaller snakes eat 'pinkies' or baby mice. He built some kind of mini gas chamber where he humanely (so he says) kills the mice before feeding time. That way the snakes get a warm meal and the mice don't have to suffer. I still couldn't do it.

One of our cats ran away earlier this year and never came back. We looked everywhere but found no trace of her, so either she went away to die or she found another home. She was 14 and pretty deaf so I'm thinking it was the former. She was a sweetie, generally but the gradual onset of deafness was turning her crabby and paranoid. So maybe she felt it was her time? Still sad about it really.

Frozen mice is just weird and creepy. Like what do you have a big ziplock of them in the freezer? As amusing as that sounds, it seems unnatural.

Well, you can feed them live mice, but it's actually pretty cruel to the mice. Or hard to do if you think of mice as anything but food for other animals. Also apparently snakes don't really like the frozen mice though. My cousin, who raises all kinds of reptiles back in Australia breeds nice for the express purpose of feeding them to his snakes. The smaller snakes eat 'pinkies' or baby mice. He built some kind of mini gas chamber where he humanely (so he says) kills the mice before feeding time. That way the snakes get a warm meal and the mice don't have to suffer. I still couldn't do it.

I don't want to sound cruel hearted or anything but I have always sort of felt like if you are going to own a pet like that you should be able accept its inherent nature, i.e; it enjoys killing and eating living mice, or whatever. If yo cannot accept that you shouldn't own the pet, otherwise you might start thinking of it as a lot more cuddly and loving than it's cold blooded self actually is and that just seems not a good idea.

In a way I guess that could seem sort of hypocritical of me, if I consider that my dog would probably enjoy a good kill of a rat or skunk or something for a daily meal, but then my dog is a breed that is quite domesticated. Over thousands and thousands of years and its inheriant nature is just as quite happy accepting a good meal of already dead meat in exchange for being told what to do and being told it is a good member of its pack (our family) for obeying and for barking at strangers and trying to annoyingly corral the family into the yard now and again.

I don't really like that phrase about never burying a good pet, because it seems so unfair to all the great pets that do have to be buried.
But it is weird to see how many people actually have had good pets that they haven't had to bury.

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